2025 French Formula 4 season preview

Photo: FFSA Academy

French F4 returns this weekend with a large entry list and longer races, but a shorter season than before

The French Formula 4 championship remains very different to its national counterparts in Europe, as it uses a Mygale chassis and all of the cars are centrally run by the FFSA Academy. Every livery also features high-visibility paint.

Each weekend will now consist of three races lasting 30 minutes each, a 50% increase on the previous length of 20 minutes.

While the calendar is shortening from seven rounds in 2024 to six in 2025, the number of minutes drivers will get to spend on track racing increases from 420 to 540, equivalent to two extra hours. Or in last year’s terms, six extra races.

Except there’s actually three fewer races, or more significantly one less track to learn. This is important when it comes to the relevance of French F4 as a learning place for single-seater newcomers, and more specifically those seeking to move up the ladder, since there is only one circuit on its schedule that is visited by other F4 series and higher categories. Not having the opportunity to work with different teams also means there is less transferable experience.

But French F4’s uniqueness is also what makes it attractive as a starting spot, and its graduates have made it to the top tier of single-seaters. Notably, Honda still sends its juniors to France and often after they have already raced in Japanese F4.

For 2025, their F4 protege in Europe is Rintaro Sato. He is the son of former Formula 1 driver and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato, was the winner of the Honda Racing School scholarship and came eighth in Japanese F4 last year as a car racing rookie.

There are nine other drivers on the grid with F4 experience, and they will likely stars in round one at Nogaro this weekend. The highest-placed of the series’ returnees are Rayan Caretti and Montego Maassen, who came seventh and eighth respectively last season.

Photo: KSP Reportages

Franco-Thai racer Caretti finished second in race two of the 2024 campaign, then his second place in race one at the Nurburgring four months later was the only other time he made the top four of a race. But he was just five points off coming fourth in the standings.

Maassen meanwhile had an even lengthier break in form, as after finishing eighth in the same race Caretti picked up his first podium in he went three rounds without scoring any points. At Magny-Cours in late August he picked up two top-five finishes, then had two podiums at Dijon and another (plus a fastest lap) at Paul Ricard. That circuit is notably absent from the 2025 schedule, but will be visited by the E4 (nee Euro 4) championship that is a continental sister series to Italian F4.

Jules Roussel, another returnee, made the podium at Spa-Francorchamps en route to 11th in the standings and notably Alexandre Munoz won at Paul Ricard but missed the opening round of 2024 and only scored four times in total so was a lowly 17th in the points table. Each of these four drivers could be a title contender, but there’s some high-profile rookies too.

Andy Consani is a recently added member of the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 Junior Team and was 16th in the CIK-FIA European championship for OK karts in 2024. He was also fourth in the WSK Euro Series, 21st in the WSK Final Cup and 36th in the CIK-FIA World championship. The year before, he came 16th in the European championship and ninth in the World championship on OK Junior karts.

Louis Iglesias is twice a finalist in the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy shootout, and was a French karting champion back in 2022. He was eighth in the CIK-FIA World championship for OK karts in 2023, and fourth in the European championship last year.

There’s also Luxembourgish (but French-entered) driver Guillaume Bouzar, who was 10th in the 2024 CIK-FIA World championship and 15th in the WSK Champions Cup on OK karts in 2024, having been FIA Karting Academy Trophy runner-up two years prior, and Hugo Herrouin who was third in the Champions of the Future Academy Programme’s OK-N class.

French F4 entry list